House Sotulyn

While House Reinar may have been the muscle behind Auren I's success at usurping the False Stone, many say that Avryl Sotulyn of House Sotulyn was the mind. Without Avryl Sotulyn's successful espionage operations within the court, Auren I would have never made decisions so crucial to victory. By most in the realm, Avryl is thus considered a hero, though there do exist certain songs in the Godspires and the Seabane Isles that paint him as a traitor and coward. After the War, House Sotulyn rose greatly in the ranks of the new emperor, and was given dominion over a swath of land in northern Surotsi taken from the now-extinct House Serepen (nominal supporter of the False Stone).

Currently, their trade in Surotsi spices and incense competes with that of House Qáhiriyün in the east, even though northern Surotsi did not have the advantage of being as isolated as the Qáhiriyün domain (in fact, while the War of the Pale Brothers did not take place primarily in Surotsi, House Serepen and its supporters and holdings were bitterly destroyed by Auren I for providing nominal assistance to the False Stone -- some would say the Serepens were made an example of -- and because of this, post-war northern Surotsi became rather grim, and it has taken the last two decades to return to any sense of normalcy). Because House Sotulyn has begun to be seen as a reliable and stable house (and because House Qáhiriyun has lately experienced an uptick in local conflicts with Esurkish tribes), more merchants are choosing the convenient quays of Sotulisi and direct trade across the Deed over the more obscure and difficult routes from Qáhiriyün ports that round Shulensi's Spires. This trend is directly dependent on House Garasai-Quacimisa, which maintains a buffer between the "civilized", "Aulesirized" northern Surotsi and the more wild frontier of the Upper Saffron and lands far south of Lake Balatyn; this buffer zone thus allows various valuable spices to be shipped downriver with a minimal threat of Esurkish raids.

At first glance, the House of Sotulyn has been for most of it’s history, a relatively minor and unimportant family, perhaps best known for its mention in the legend of Luseysi‘s death, which tells of a man named Sotul carrying a purple flame across the land to announce the passing of the Emperor. After this, the family’s history becomes quite muddled.

What is known is that at some point House Sotulyn was granted sizable tracts of land on the outskirts of the Pale City, though with the growth of the imperial capital, the family eventually sold most of this off. By the time of the War of the Pale Brothers, the only remaining Sotulyn holdings in the vicinity of the Pale City were some scattered holdings in the marshlands to the south of what would eventually grow into the Merchants' Quarter. However, even these lands had been all but abandoned by the family, who had taken up living in luxury apartments closer to the city's center.

House Sotulyn has had a long history of producing advisers, bureaucrats and priests, many of whom have served directly within the Imperial Palace. During the War of the Pale Brothers, Avryl Sotulyn, at much great risk to himself, worked as a spy for the Emperor‘s brother within the palace. When the Emperor was eventually defeated and his brother took the throne, Avryl was awarded a large estate in Surotsi that had previously belonged to an enemy lord, executed for refusing to recognize the new emperor.

Though Avryl took up residence in his new estate across the sea, supposedly abandoning his stake in Jyotnun, in a somewhat open secret, he continued to hold onto some of his holdings near the Pale City. Since the formation of the Merchants' Quarter, the Sotulyn section of town had actually become quite valuable, though not in the traditional sense. The few blocks of Sotulyn owned land grew into what many residents of the Pale City derisively refer to as “the Mire”, a section of town containing many taverns, brothels and gambling halls. While of course being associated with the Mire has been somewhat embarrassing for House Sotulyn, it has also been very profitable financially and even politically at times.